THE UNION government has written to heads of all state education boards this week advising them to stop the practice of inflating Class XII board marks in the garb of ‘moderation’. Pointing to CBSE’s commitment to avoid “bunching of marks” and “their spiking” in its evaluation of board papers in 2018, School Education Secretary Anil Swarup has urged states to also get on the bandwagon. According to Swarup’s October 6 letter, accessed by The Indian Express, an inter-board group — with representation from CBSE, ICSE and the state boards of Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Manipur — held two meetings and recommended that apart from discontinuing moderation, the practice of giving grace marks can continue provided the policy is publicly declared and the weightage to extra-curricular activities should be the same across all boards. The school education secretary has requested all state boards to implement the suggestions. Moderation policy refers to a practice in which students get extra marks in subjects regarded ‘unusually difficult’, or if there have been differences in the sets of question papers. So, in theory, moderation is not a bad practice, except, schools boards have been misusing it to inflate Class XII results to give their students a competitive edge in admission to higher education institutions. This year, CBSE along with 32 other boards formed a consensus at a meeting held on April 24 that the misuse of moderation should be stopped. The Delhi High Court, however, intervened on account to the decision being last minute and directed CBSE to continue with moderation, which meant that marks inflated even this year. Swarup’s letter sent this week is the union government’s second attempt to end the practice of moderation. The missive has been dispatched well in advance so that courts do not intervene and overturn the decision on grounds of it being last minute, sources said.
